----- Original Message ----- From: Gil Robertson <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> To: <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> Sent: Tuesday, February 12, 2002 9:16 AM Subject: Re: Australian soils OM
> Lloyd Charles wrote: Snip - We hear a lot about our old worn out soils but > given reasonable rainfall and sensible management most will produce at a decent > level without a great deal of drama. I think we are lucky that we have not yet > toxified our soil to the same degree as some overseas - North America in > particular > > I agree with the first bit, but for the second, over here of the SA West Coast, > we are doing pretty well. Gil don't get me wrong I did sat not YET ! - meaning that we might have a bit longer to wake up to our problem. For sure agriculture everywhere is heading into the poo heap at a rapid rate - still the boys around here are buying new bigger tractors with the proceeds of their herbicide tolerant, nitrogen addicted canola crops and rolling up in droves to the fertiliser company sponsored pre season grower meetings to "plan" their preventive herbicde rotation strategy -- make no mistake the best of these fellows are making very handsome profits growing grain at present prices -- meanwhile our closest major town tops the list of cancer cases per capita but we all know that has nothing to do with chemical usage dont we? >What we used to think of as Salinity is now being > recognised as Herbicide Scald. A major problem here is that the use of > herbicides has done to death the soil biota and with that gone, there is no way > to correct available soil carbon and without that there is no food to help > re-establish the soil biota. The soils are 8.5 to 9.8 pH and soil carbon down to > 0.01% in some analysis. I don't see how one can bring soil like that back > without going BD. These would have been pretty ordinary in their native state ?? I have seen some of this calcareous sand country and it really does not turn me on much. Do you think BD could restore these to equal your nice granite country ?? Because I am certain sure that no other method can!!
